Okay, I find this highly amusing. The swag bag being handed out to every media person at the Republican National Convention includes a hardcover version of Romney’s book that contains a passage that brings one of his most absurd contradictions to light:
On page 177 of the hardcover version of No Apology that’s being given out at the RNC, Romney describes his Massachusetts health care law and writes: “We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country, and it can be done without letting government take over health care.”
This language was problematic, because it implied, contrary to what Romney has said elsewhere, that Romney thought his Massachusetts health care law could be a model for the nation. Such phrasing complicated his argument for why his law was different from President Obama’s national one.
It didn’t “complicate his argument,” it just showed that he was lying when he said he didn’t think, at the time, that the Massachusetts plan should be replicated for everyone. He now has to pretend otherwise because that position is wildly unpopular with the base of his party. He’s simply tried to rewrite his own history and now he’s handing out a book that catches him doing it. Hilarious.
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anubisprime
August 29, 2012 at 10:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Enough rope…and the dumb get a lot dumber!
At this rate Obama will not have to break a sweat for his next term in office.
schmeer
August 29, 2012 at 10:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is no danger to Romney here. No one at the convention is going to actually read his book. They will insist that the liberal media pointing to the passage are lying anyway.
anubisprime
August 29, 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
schmeer @ 2
Given the intellectual level on display…it is doubtful if anyone that attended the rethuglian circle jerk can read for comprehension anyway!
Mr Ed
August 29, 2012 at 10:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m an optimist, at least they aren’t burning them.
As to his view point Mitt is opposed to government mandated health care. Mitt has always been opposed to government mandated health care
blf
August 29, 2012 at 10:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Razor blades, a reprinted page, and instructions will be passed out soon.
In the meantime, assorted windbags and the like will claim it’s an Obama / UN / Muslim plot — infiltrated the publishers or hacked their computers or something — it must be ‘cuz RMoney would never ever say anything like that. And we all know commie atheist muslim gay evilutionistas censor and rewrite everything!
Michael Heath
August 29, 2012 at 11:00 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I watched the liberal viral video of Chris Matthews, who was sitting with some other MSNBC colleagues including Joe Scarborough, lambast their interview subject Rence Priebus. I think last Monday. Mr. Preibus is the Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Mr. Matthews was furious about the Romney/GOP campaign stoking the racist hatred of conservatives with falsehoods in order to improve Mr. Romney’s electoral chances. Mr. Scarborough was trying to pull Matthews back, I think justly so; especially since Matthews’s anger had him overlooking the gigantic lie Chairman Priebus told in order to change the conversation. That lie was that Obamacare took over the healthcare sector as opposed to what happened instead, it reformed the regulatory structure of how healthcare is financed in order to expand coverage, better manage costs, and improve outcomes relative to the failed marketplace the U.S. healthcare sector has long been – at least since the 1980s.
Aliasalpha
August 29, 2012 at 11:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So why isn’t he claiming that Obama is a policy thief rather than trying to pretend the policy is bad? I mean you get to show your policy is so good that even the other side sees it, you get the bonus of having proposed it first, you avoid the obvious lies that your own fucking book debunks and as a bonus you get the racist dog whistle of mentioning theft and a black man in the same sentence.
d cwilson
August 29, 2012 at 11:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No one at the convention is going to actually read a book.
FIFY.
Besides, can’t they just shake the book and make Romney’s old position disappear?
F
August 29, 2012 at 12:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It isn’t socialism if it just happens in this one state over here. Well, it is, but it wasn’t when I legislated it.
Christoph Burschka
August 29, 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Romney’s mistake was writing stuff down. It’s kind of hard to maintain etch-a-sketch opinions when you put stuff on the permanent record like that.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Vile Human Being
August 29, 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought this post was going to be about this…
democommie
August 29, 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Romney’s mistake was writing stuff down.”.
That caught me unaware and I almost choked on my Alpo sammich. Writing is for the little people.
Trebuchet
August 29, 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Romney probably DIDN’T write it down. His ghost-writer did. He has PEOPLE to do all the trivial work-stuff for him, you know.
laurentweppe
August 29, 2012 at 12:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Because it would go like this:
Romney: Hey guys: remember the policy my party pretended to support when people asked us if we had an alternative to a single payer system that we never really intended to implement except when I ended up implementing it in my state ’cause I thought it would help me pretend that I felt some actual empathy toward the rubes?
Yeah, Obama totally stole it from me.
ewanmacdonald
August 29, 2012 at 1:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I assume the get-out will be that it will be 50 states running it and not the federal government?
jeevmon
August 29, 2012 at 1:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You know, this really calls his competence into question. How hard is it to scrub a new printing of the book to modify or excise the passage in question? George Lucas does this with his movies all the damn time, and those have actual pictures and (a few) people in them.
kermit.
August 29, 2012 at 2:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
jeevmon – not hard at all. The second edition does indeed have a new, improved, history. Their mistake was in getting rid of the leftover first-edition hardcovers. they should have bought them all and burned them.
d cwilson
August 29, 2012 at 2:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
BTW, wasn’t this the passage that Mitt offered to bet Rick Perry $5,000 (despite Moron prohibitions against gambling) that wasn’t in the hard copy edition of his book?
Abby Normal
August 29, 2012 at 4:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So regulation equals socialist government takeover. In that case the GOP’s platform is that Americans deserve socialized pornography.
d cwilson
August 29, 2012 at 6:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Or socialized wombs.